Branding for Films

Convergent Evolution occurs in nature when two species evolve along similar paths because it’s most practical solution to survival. One of many examples is the aye-aye lemur and the striped possum which both have one elongated finger used to get insects from trees, despite being different species living in entirely different parts of the world.

We just spotted a similar convergent evolution in the logo design for a company.

Way back in the mists of time, one of the founders of Narrative, Alec East, was a designer for feature films (and we occasionally still do it). Amongst other things, he designed the logo for a James Bond villain, Gustav Graves in Die Another Day (2002), whose front company traded in diamonds. The logo design was simple: a diamond comprised of the villain’s initials: G. G.

After the usual trademark checks, the final logo was featured in the film and quite visible across henchmen’s uniforms, on massive video walls and even a huge rotating ice sculpture.

Several years after the film was released, and with no connection whatsoever, a company called the Genuine Gemstone Company started trading and it deals in precious stones, selling them through TV shows in numerous countries. Purely by coincidence, convergent evolution seems to have occurred and they have a very similar logo.

Below you can compare them: The Gustav Graves logo is on the left, with the The Genuine Gemstone Company on the right.

We have no idea who designed their logo and there is no reason to suspect the design was, in any way, influenced by the Gustav Graves version in Die Another Day – in fact it’s far more likely that the similarity is due to a similar creative thought process that reached the same results because they were the best design solution. It’s not genius, just solid creative problem solving and, as such, good to see the concept was good enough to come through for someone else.

So there you have it, great minds think alike… or fools seldom differ.

Just for fun, here’s an old reel of the screen graphics that were designed for Die Another Day.